Trust Your Eyes

Irish rugby is in decline, and we need to pause the back-slapping

“Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone; It’s with O’Leary in the grave” - WB Yeats

“At the end of the day, sport is about winners and losers and there comes a tipping point where supporters and the media demand another win”. That was the words of Ian Madigan when he spoke to me last week, to preview the 2026 European Cup finals.

At the time, it made perfect sense. Win or bust for a side who have been knocking on the door so long, that they need to take the hint. Fast forward to 5pm Irish time on Saturday, and our perception of Irish rugby has changed, changed utterly.

A less than full-strength Ulster squad shipped 59 points in the Challenge Cup final, and were followed up by Leinster losing 41-19 to Union Bordeaux-Bégles a day later. A sad and sorry sight for Irish rugby fans, but one that has been coming in it’s own way.

---

---

Far from me of all people to accuse others of jumping the gun, but hindsight does make the clearest vision. Ireland’s celebration of a lack of a discernible ‘World Cup hangover’ was fair at the time, but always a touch premature. A little under 28 months since the massacre in Marseille and everything is not what it seems.

2024 Six Nations, 2025 URC and possibly a further league crown in 2026 are the few highlights. The lowlights however include being man-handled by France, New Zealand and South Africa twice, three more European heartaches for Leinster, and consistently underwhelming European & URC campaigns for the other provinces.

It’s not good.

You can apply context all you want, but there is no doubt in my mind that Irish rugby is underperforming, practically across the board. The bubble has burst, the aura is lost, and yet still, not everyone wants to recognise this.

Chart my own work last November or beyond and you will hear or read me saying this very thing. Slowly at first then all at once, the Irish rugby ecosystem is degreading bit by bit, inch by inch; because sport will always be cyclical.

You can’t outhink or outscheme away from the troughs that always follow the peaks.

Watching Leinster’s latest European disappointment on Saturday was a sharp reminder that the symmetry between club and country means a loss like that, effects everyone.

Like seperating church and state, opinion does not matter as long as decision makers keep the two intertwined. In total, there were 21 Ireland internationals and one All Black in Leinster’s matchday squad, with almost 1,000 caps between them.

And yet it’s said that you can’t link the two.

If anything, you cannot untangle Leinster and Ireland, and how yet another continental themed no-show could come back to bite the national team on their derrière.

Sure Ireland were a kick of a ball away from a title and went 4/5 in the Six Nations; but let’s not pretend that it was a return to past glories.

It was a mixed bag with one decrepit Parisian performance akin to Bilbao, a near-catastrophic loss to Italy, a malaise vs Wales and two much improved wins over England and Scotland.

If that’s not a mixed bag, then I don’t know what is.

If you want to be cruel, you would say that sweeping changes are needed across the board, and that there’s a mental glitch in some key players and coaches. I would not go that far, but when it comes to Leinster and their European pilgrimage, there are countless talking points.

After five final defeats and numerous other knockout blows, everything and anything is fair game.

That is the nature of sport.

Leo Cullen and Jacques Nienaber will be under pressure for the next 12 months if they stay in Dublin, despite leading Leinster to a remarkable level of consistency.

Personally, I feel like Leo Cullen is the right man at Leinster, but that could be more as a Director of Rugby than head coach. The Nienaber experiment has ultimately failed, but he too should be given the good grace to see out the remainder of his contract.

As for the players, maybe they just need a reprieve from the pressure cooker.

When the majority of games you player are test matches or club games of serious consequence, there is sure to be an emotional toll grinding away at your energy levels. The case for a rotated Summer tour grows stronger with every passing day, as Ireland’s “core group” look more and more human.

Age + setbacks = taxation.

Of course it would be remiss of me if I did not discuss Ulster’s defeat in some way, and how it too reflects on the abject and sustained mediocrity of the “other three” provinces in recent years.

Celebrated and heralded without a hint of irony, Ulster’s business end of the season unravelled quickly, leading to a URC run-in of 1 win from 6, and a near-historic European final defeat. As James Hume confessed to the media, they are right back at square one.

As an Irish rugby enthusiast who wants four competitive provinces, I hope Ulster bin off the Challenge Cup next season, and focus solely on the URC. 10+ wins to secure playoff rugby has to be the minimum, after a turbulent last half decade.

Their compadres Connacht and Munster are in URC Quarter-Final action this weekend, and arguably, need a win more than Leinster. A Connacht victory in Scotstoun would show true progression, after what was admittedly, a more favourable second half of the season versus the first.

Munster on the other hand will be looking to park pages worth of “off-field noise” when they return to Pretoria, a place where their record is impressive. Winning is a tall order, as is the case for Connacht, especially with Tadhg Beirne and Jack Crowley as injury doubts. Yet, can a province like Munster ever settle for last eight elimination in a league with the lowly Welsh and Italian sides?

No.

Irish rugby needs a spark to show begrudgers, myself chief amongst them, that there is life in the old dog yet. However, it’s a foggy path towards salvation as you just hope that someone can, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Dylan Thomas).

---

---